>>>>>Hi Mike,
>>>>>
>>>>>You may be the exception :-) Within 10 minutes of first turning on our DSL line here, one unpatched machine got the Blaster - mine. Everyone else was up to date, firewall up to par, etc.
>>>>
>>>>Was that Microsofts fault?
>>>
>>>Yep - their RPC vulnerability - not mine.
>>
>>Which they had fixed and provided a patch for that you didn't see fit to install.
>
>And your point is? In case you have missed it, others have been hit as easily. Install your favorite Windows OS. Install any service pack you desire. Now, connect to the Internet to get your Windows Updates. If you don't see any opportunity for an infection at this point, you are certainly clueless. And answer me this - how many of these patches are after the fact?

Not to mention the strange things that randomly happen after some patch is installed.
Just yesterday a buddy needed to install ".NET Framework Runtime" for some Flight Sim add-on. Now some prior patch had messed up his "Windows Update" such that he gets an "ActiveX unauthorized..." error whenever Windows Update tries to run the "search for updates". So he asked me to download it for him. I did, and sent it off to him and he installed it. Now, after any boot he gets something he NEVER had before - the standard Windows startup "login" screen and he has to click his (and the only) icon to get things running. Yet it never shows up when the screen saver has kicked in or any other time. Just another one of those mysterious MS things that people seem to expect and ACCEPT!!!

cheers